October Menu Plan

As usual, this month is all about keeping costs low while staying as healthy as we possibly can. That means that we'll use our freezer and pantry stash, glean where we can, and purchase produce on sale (and locally when possible).  We're grateful to have a pretty well stocked freezer, which will be the basis of a lot of our meals this month.

Here's the basic outline:

Breakfasts:

• baked oatmeal with dried fruit and nuts and applesauce from the freezer
• hard boiled eggs and fresh fruit (likely citrus, apples, or pears)
• leftover roasted veggies with eggs or bacon
• weekend "big boy" breakfasts with Paleo pancakes and fruit or yogurt parfaits
• smoothies with frozen fruit, non dairy milk, and any seasonings (ginger and cinnamon are seasonal favorites)
• banana bars with fruit

Lunches:

• leftovers (sometimes remixed over rice, pasta, or inside tortillas)
• ants on a log (celery spread with peanut butter or almond butter and topped with raisins)
• hard boiled eggs
• fresh fruit
• sliced veggies (peppers, carrots, cucumber, or whatever we have around)
• deli meat and cheese roll ups
• homemade energy bites (with almond butter or peanut butter)

Dinners:

• Thai chicken crock pot soup
• crock pot potato soup with fixin's (bacon, cheese, chopped onion or mushroom) and salad
• community meals at the Children's Council 2x week and Sunday dinner with Mom
• Friday night pizza night (homemade pizza dough in bread machine or almond flour pizza dough)
• sausages and roasted veggies
• crock pot pork roast and potatoes
• chicken stir fry with Asian slaw and egg rolls
• crock pot chili and almond flour "corn bread"

Batch Cooking:

• energy bites
• roasted veggies (I try to make a double batch over the weekend so that we can reheat them throughout the week)
• Asian slaw (it's one of my favs and keeps well)
• hard boiled eggs
• crock pot meals

Freezer stash (i.e. what we'll use from our freezer)

• ground beef (for chili)
• chicken breasts
• tomatoes from last year
• pesto
• pork roast
• corn
• sliced almonds
• frozen fruit

Pantry stash:

• oatmeal
• flax meal
• chia seeds
• honey
• chocolate chips
• almond flour
• dried beans
• onions
• potatoes
• sun dried tomatoes
• olives
• dried fruit (this varies, but can include raisins, dried coconut, apricots, prunes, currants, etc.)